In this essay, Yuli Tamir argues that the growing interest in public education in the developed world in general and in the United States in particular is grounded in a fear of losing global hegemony. The most rational approach to slowing down these hegemonic shifts is to empower public education and allow the neglected human capital vested in presently excluded communities to flourish. However, moves to improve public education are met by the unspoken though persistent resentment of those (...) who fear the transformative power of education and would like to preserve the present social order. Here Tamir reviews some of the moves commonly taken to preserve these “social gaps” and concludes by suggesting that alongside vocal public support for school reforms promoting equal opportunities, silent yet very effective social strategies have developed that undo the benefits of such reforms and maintain the present social gaps. (shrink)

"This is a most timely, intelligent, well-written, and absorbing essay on a central and painful social and political problem of out time."--Sir Isaiah Berlin"The major achievement of this remarkable book is a critical theory of nationalism, worked through historical and contemporary examples, explaining the value of national commitments and defining their moral limits. Tamir explores a set of problems that philosophers have been notably reluctant to take on, and leaves us all in her debt."--Michael WalzerIn this provocative work, (...) class='Hi'>Yael Tamir urges liberals not to surrender the concept of nationalism to conservative, chauvinist, or racist ideologies. In her view, liberalism, with its respect for personal autonomy, reflection, and choice, and nationalism, with its emphasis on belonging, loyalty, and solidarity are not irreconcilable. Here she offers a new theory, "liberal nationalism," which allows each set of values to accommodate the other. Tamir sees nationalism as an affirmation of communal and cultural memberships and as a quest for recognition and self-respect. Persuasively she argues that national groups can enjoy these benefits through political arrangements other than the nation-state. While acknowledging that nationalism places members of national minorities at a disadvantage, the author offers guidelines for alleviating the problems involved using examples from currents conflicts in the Middle East and in Eastern Europe.Liberal Nationalismis an impressive attempt to tie together a wide range of issues often kept apart: personal autonomy, cultural membership, political obligations, particularity versus impartiality in moral duties, and global justice. Drawing on material from disparate fields--including political philosophy, ethics, law, and sociology--Tamir brings out important and previously unnoticed interconnections between them, offering a new perspective on the influence of nationalism on modern political philosophy. (shrink)

The surprising case for liberal nationalism Around the world today, nationalism is back—and it’s often deeply troubling. Populist politicians exploit nationalism for authoritarian, chauvinistic, racist, and xenophobic purposes, reinforcing the view that it is fundamentally reactionary and antidemocratic. But Yael Tamir makes a passionate argument for a very different kind of nationalism—one that revives its participatory, creative, and egalitarian virtues, answers many of the problems caused by neoliberalism and hyperglobalism, and is essential to democracy at its best. In (...) Why Nationalism, she explains why it is more important than ever for the Left to recognize these positive qualities of nationalism, to reclaim it from right-wing extremists, and to redirect its power to progressive ends. Provocative and hopeful, Why Nationalism is a timely and essential rethinking of a defining feature of our politics. (shrink)

Yael Tamir; Two Concepts of Multiculturalism, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 29, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 161–172, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467.

Yael Tamir; Two Concepts of Multiculturalism, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 29, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 161–172, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467.

Yael Tamir; Whose Education Is It Anyẃay?, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 24, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 161–170, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-97.

Yael Tamir; Whose Education Is It Anyẃay?, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 24, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 161–170, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-97.

This chapter contains sections titled: Education and Politics The Politics of Identity Rewriting the Curricula Retraining Teachers Rethinking Parental Choices and Demands for Segregation The Limits of Diversity.

This paper is a homage to Isaiah Berlin. It argues that Berlin's philosophy has preceded many of the present discussions concerning liberalism-culturalism. In an age in which most liberal philosophers ignored the importance of belonging, of member-ship, identity, cultural affiliations and historical continuity, Berlin stands out as a welcome exception. His philosophy is therefore fresh and innovative as it was in the sixties and seventies when it was written. It carries within it the germs of the liberalism of the fringes (...) advocated nowadays by members of national minorities, immigrants, women, and gays, the kind of liberalism which fits well the politics of identity and recognition. (shrink)

In multicultural societies different communities live side by side with each other, respecting each other's identities and traditions to different degrees, sometimes living in harmony and sometimes in conflict. The phenomenon of multiculturalism requires us to re-examine many of the concepts used in political theory, for example 'citizenship', 'rights', 'toleration', 'democracy'. Most of all, multiculturalism demands a redefinition of educational ends and means. The writers in this volume employ their discussions of multiculturalism to reflect on the liberal democratic tradition and (...) in so doing allow us better to understand its scope as well as its limits. (shrink)

Philosophical questions are not like empirical problems, which can be answered by observation or experiment or entitlements from them. Nor are they like mathematical problems which can be settled by deductive methods, like problems in chess or any other rule-governed game or procedure. But questions about the ends of life, about good and evil, about freedom and necessity, about objectivity and relativity, cannot be decided by looking into even the most sophisticated dictionary or the use of empirical or mathematical reasoning. (...) Not to know where to look for the answer is the surest symptom of a philosophical problem.Isaiah BerlinCritics of recent philosophical analyses of nationalism suggest that nationalism is a unique social phenomenon that cannot, and need not, be theorized. Are there, indeed, some special features constitutive of nationalism that might defy theorization? Those answering this question in the affirmative point to the plurality and specificity of national experiences, as well as to the emotional and eclectic nature of nationalist discourse. (shrink)

This paper offers an analysis of the notion “the quest for identity.” The discussion emphasizes the importance of communal belonging, but rejects the view that one ought to belong to the community one was born to. It suggests that the quest for identity may lead individuals to follow many avenues: while some individuals might affirm their “inherent” affiliations and traditions, others may remain within their community of origin and strive to change its ways, or chose to leave their social group (...) and opt for membership in a new one. This analysis suggests that choice, characteristic of the liberal conception of the person, and rootedness, characteristic of the communitarian conception of the person, both play an important role in the formation of personal identity. (shrink)

This paper attempts to follow the changes in the concept “state” over the last two hundred years, by tracing changes in the aims of public education. Four major stages are identified. The first is characterized by the establishment of the nation-state, when a national and civic education are fused together. The second is marked by the erosion of the identity between state and nation, and by attempts to prevent this process through the development of contradictory educational strategies: ‘neutral civic education’ (...) and nation building through the mechanism of the ‘melting pot’. At the third stage, despite the above-mentioned efforts, the awakening of national minorities demanding special national education sharpens the distinction between civic and national education. This leads to the last stage, the politics of difference, when the nationally homogenous nation-state is replaced by a consciously heterogenous state. Such a state can grant all its members equal civil and national rights only if it endorses traditional liberal values. Hence, despite the fact they firmly criticize liberalism and attempt to revive particular national education supporters of the politics of difference cannot deny that liberal values and civic education offer the best protection for their own ends. (shrink)

The purpose of this book is to make “a case for nationalism, highlighting the ways it shaped public policy and made the years between the end of the world wars and the eruption of neoliberal global...

In this book, Yael Greenberg discusses and clarifies a number of controversial issues and phenomena in the generic literature, including the existence of ...

"Semantic Truth Theories" uses the techniques of mathematical logic to develop a new semantic treatment of the concept of truth based on ideas of Saul Kripke. Yael Cohen goes on to solve the Liar paradox, Hempel's raven paradox in the philosophy of science, and other classical problems of philosophy. She does this by enlarging the scope of formal logic to include concepts of presupposition besides the usual implication. The book thus provides a unified treatment of many topics having to (...) do with truth, topics whose deep and unsuspected interconnections are not visible without the insights of mathematical knowledge which the author elaborates. The early chapters of the book contain an accessible introduction to semantic paradoxes which should be useful to students. (shrink)

Contemporary realities of global population movement increasingly bring to the fore the challenge of quality and equitable health provision across language barriers. While this linguistic challenge is not unique to immigration contexts and is likewise shared by health systems responding to the needs of aboriginal peoples and other historical linguistic minorities, the expanding multilingual landscape of receiving societies renders this challenge even more critical, owing to limited or even non‐existing familiarity of modern and often monolingual health systems with the particular (...) needs of new linguistic minorities. The centrality of language to health beliefs, attitudes, practices, cultural scripts, and conceptual frameworks emphasizes its pivotal role in the healthcare process, and consequently in the adverse effects of treatment that is language‐insensitive and unaware. Such an attitude on the part of medical authorities risks considerable epistemic injustice in the form of a (mis)judgement of patients’ intelligence, credibility, and rationality based on the language that they speak and the manner in which they speak it, consequently impacting the quality and equity of care provided. This danger, I argue, may be effectively countered by fostering among the participants in the healthcare process a sense of epistemic humility through greater metalinguistic awareness. Outlining a range of operative steps that can be used to facilitate this. I argue that the reality of language barriers in the healthcare process, while not entirely eliminable, may nevertheless be successfully addressed, in order to mitigate the challenge of quality and equitable healthcare provision in multilingual societies. (shrink)